AI model comparison
Qwen3.5-9B vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Qwen
Qwen3.5-9B
Qwen3.5-9B is a multimodal foundation model from the Qwen3.5 family, designed to deliver strong reasoning, coding, and visual understanding in an efficient 9B-parameter architecture.
Qwen3.5-9B is scheduled to be retired on October 21, 2026. Consider Qwen3.8 27B instead.
- Input / 1M
- $0.10
- Output / 1M
- $0.15
- Context
- 262K
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct is a 30.5B parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model with 128 experts (8 active per forward pass), designed for advanced code generation, repository-scale understanding, and agentic tool use.
- Input / 1M
- $0.07
- Output / 1M
- $0.28
- Context
- 262K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Qwen3.5-9B
1.0x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Qwen3.5-9B
13.3 vs 9.6 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Tie
262K vs 262K tokens
Newer release
Qwen3.5-9B
Released March 10, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Qwen3.5-9B13.3Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct9.6Coding index
Qwen3.5-9B23.5Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructNot availableAgentic index
Qwen3.5-9BNot availableQwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructNot availablePricing
Qwen3.5-9B vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.10 | $0.07 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.15 | $0.28 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Qwen3.5-9B$0.27Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$0.28Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Qwen3.5-9B$3.60Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$3.22Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Qwen3.5-9B$15.30Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$11.06Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 262K tokens | 262K tokens |
| Max output | 33K tokens | 236K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text, Video | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | March 10, 2026 | July 31, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Not supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
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- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
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- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 14B
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Our take
Qwen3.5-9B is 1.0x cheaper for a typical chat. Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (13.3 vs 9.6). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.5-9B or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct cheaper?
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3.5-9B costs $0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.15 per 1M output tokens, while Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.07 per 1M input tokens and $0.28 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Qwen3.5-9B or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Qwen3.5-9B supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 262K for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct.
Is Qwen3.5-9B smarter than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Qwen3.5-9B scores 13.3 and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct scores 9.6, putting Qwen3.5-9B ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Qwen3.5-9B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Qwen3.5-9B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Qwen3.5-9B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.